Londonist: Oyster Coming To Mainline Trains

May 13, 2008

Oyster Coming To Mainline Trains

Oyster cards will soon be accepted on all mainline trains, or at least they will if Boris gets his way. This first steps were taken yesterday when the mayor signed an agreement with First Great Western, who will implement Oyster on all of their London trains as of September. It will certainly be more convenient, but the real bonus comes in the fact that the reduce rates offered on buses and the Tube will now be extended to the participating trains. This will also lead to an upgrade at participating stations, which will need to be outfitted with Oyster equipment to the tune of £40million (which will hopefully be made up participating trains and not in a fare hike). Boris will continue meeting with companies in a quest for total fare card synergy.

Image courtesy of rashbre via the Londonist Flickrpool.

By Amanda Farah in News | Link | Comments (8) | Recommend this! |

Tags: boris johnson, first great western, oyster, tfl, trains

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Comments (8) [rss]

[1] | 05/13/08 04:11PM

What do you mean "first steps"? There are four train companies that already accept Oyster PAYG on all of their London services (c2c, Chiltern, London Overground, London Midland), and two more with significant coverage (First Capital Connect, National Express East Anglia).

On top of that, the First Great Western deal was as good as done before the election (they'd started accepting it on part of their route already), and all the other train companies had already pledged acceptance from next year, so Londonist (and, in fairness, most other press) is falling for Boris' shameless repackaging of Ken's policies.

Grrr.

[2] | 05/13/08 04:49PM

Yes - the previous Mayor got the TOCs to agree to this, the project is rolling out already (the stations from Seven Sisters to Liverpool Street went live a couple of months ago).

The new Mayor merely committed to support the completion of the process - a better headline would be "Boris continues Ken's good work".

Grrr, indeed.

[3] | 05/13/08 04:54PM

Sorry, didn't realise this was merely a continuation of good works. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[4] | 05/13/08 08:02PM

The amount of political spin on this story really is quite amazing. I don't know how Boris can make it seem as if he's the one behind this. Ken has gotten every single London operator to agree to use Oyster a long time ago already. See this news story:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/archive/3326.aspx

FGW just rolled it out onto part of their network because this was agreed on while Ken was in charge. I can't wait for FCC to roll it out, though. It'd make it a lot easier for a lot of my travelcard-less friends to visit!

[5] | 05/13/08 11:08PM

Geez, what a bunch of whingers some of these commenters are.

This Oyster rollout is excellent news for a huge proportion of London travellers, and long overdue, regardless of whose idea it was.

Why not just enjoy the benefits that this will bring, instead of bleating on about some imagined "political spin" because you don't like the colour of the mayor's tie, or whatever pointless axe you feel the need to grind.

This anti-Boris whining is beginning to get tiresome already. I'm no great fan of the man (and I didn't vote for him), but I'm not so one-eyed that I'm not happy to see a good result for the transport system, whoever announces it.

[6] | 05/13/08 11:23PM

You've got to admit that Boris is reaping the benefits here. I'm jumping for joy that this is nearly here but, still, it's a bit rich that BJ's PR machine's making it his personal triumph.

Or maybe it's just terrible Metro reporting.

[7] | 05/14/08 12:08AM

I think that London travellers are reaping the vast majority of the benefits, to be honest, regardless of any PR machines or slanted reporting.

[8] | 05/16/08 01:11PM

I'm struggling to see what this article has to do with our new Mayor. A reference to our former Mayor would have been useful, given that he was the person behind these policies.

Fortunately this has been rectified in the comments, but perhaps reading beyond Boris' (spin-full) press release would be useful for future stories.